BOSTON - Children may have an advantage when it comes to fighting off COVID, and their secret weapon may be their noses.
Children tend to experience milder symptoms of COVID compared to adults, and Australian researchers may have discovered one reason why.
They found that the lining of children's noses mounts a greater inflammatory response to the ancestral and Delta strains of the coronavirus, reducing the virus' ability to replicate.
However, this was less striking with the Omicron variant, suggesting that kids' nasal defense advantage over adults may be lessening as the virus evolves.
Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.